Across the West, working-class voters are abandoning the Left

That’s what many people at the moment believe. But if you look elsewhere, white working-class voters are deserting centre-left parties across the western world, so it would be strange if Labour was able to buck this trend. In Austria, for instance, 85 per cent of working-class men voted for the radical right at last year’s presidential elections. Working-class voters also carried Donald Trump to power – the Orange One having a 39 point advantage among ‘non-college whites’. In France, the National Front can rely on the support of 45 per cent of blue-collar workers, a figure Labour could only dream about.

Compare Labour’s woes with the state of Ukip, a party which at the moment seems to embody Conquest’s Third Law – the idea that the simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.